Pardon me for being a slow-top lately. I finally got why these first two episodes have been excruciatingly slow for me. It’s because the slow-moving pictures imitate the tone and cadence of a melancholic poem.
1. The Poems
Here are the two poems in this episode. The first one was deliberately omitted in the Viki (copyright issues?) so here is the Kissasian sub. It was a poem from the book “The Person I Love.”
“A Glass of Drink”
by Jeong Ho Seung
Life has never bought me a drink.
On many winter nights,
at a snack stall in a dead-end alley,
I emptied out my pockets
to buy life a drink.
But life has never bought me
A single drink,
whether it was a snowy day,
or a day when a stone lotus flower
silently bloomed and fell.
To me, this poem illustrates that “Han” feeling I mentioned in “Crash Landing on You.” It’s about “Woe is me! What an unfeeling life!” The narrator whines that life has not been sympathetic to her, not even once.
Here’s the second one. I took the liberty of combining the Kissasian and Viki subs for clarity.
“An Empty Meadow”
by Shim Myeong Yeo
Sleet fell on the waters of Haecheon’s rice paddy.
The last time they spent together as lovers
melted away completely, like a lie.
She thought of him whom she left in the meadow.
“How much longer must I wander along the edges of pain
to erase all the memories?”
If memories of love were sleet
Or a snowman lost in the wrong season,
The regrets are needless.
I just wanted them gone.
Only disillusionment is left in the lonely meadow.
An old love crosses the river of oblivion.
If only I could also cross this field of futility.
However, nicely worded this is, this poem is a cliché. Wintry weather conditions are always depicted as sad reminder of painful break-up just as the first buds of spring must call to mind the first stirrings of love. Unlike sleet (which is frozen rain) and the snowman (built in the summer), her memories of her ex-lover can’t seem to melt away.
Those are the two obvious poems but when we listen to the dialogues between the two leads, Haewon and Eunsub, their language, speech pattern, and hesitations and pauses also sound like a poem. For instance, this:
ES: You can borrow that, too.
HW: Actually…I didn’t read for a while.
ES: Why?
HW: Books contain stories. I was conflicted over those people in the stories and myself. It was difficult for me. I thought…I have enough on my plate as it is, living my own life, do I have to concern myself with other people’s hardships as well?
ES: That makes sense.
Here is Haewon’s complaint in free verse:
“Other People, in Other Words”
by Haewon/packmule3
Because books contain stories,
I kept away.
Because stories contain people,
I was conflicted.
It was difficult for me.
I thought:
Living my own life was really hellish enough.
Must I live other people’s fictional hell as well?
I couldn’t be bothered.
See that? lol. Many of the long remarks in this kdrama can be turned into poetry themselves. And you know why? It’s because the “unexpressed content” of their words evokes poetry. It’s what they don’t reveal behind the words (or “between the lines”) that not only sounds poetic, but also conveys the poetic sense and sensibility of the screenwriter.
2. Gymnopedie No. 1 by Erik Satie
The complete title of the piece is Gymnopedie No. 1 “Lent et dolourex” which means slow and sorrowful or mournful.
To be honest, this sort of abstract, dreamy music doesn’t appeal to me much. Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” was my limit, because it was my piano recital piece when I was 15 years old, and was into that kind of music.
Debussy and Satie were contemporaries. And during their time, musical compositions were often given lofty names like symphonies, sonatas, preludes, fugues, and so on. As far as I know, Satie was the first one to use “gymnopedie” for a piano piece. Supposedly, the word came from a Greek word meaning a sporting festival. It was like our modern-day Olympics except young men competed to the best of their athletic abilities while naked. (Woohoo!)
But this musical piece does NOT at all sound like a rambunctious festival, right? So people were confused about the meaning and intent of Satie.
Personally I believe that Mr. Satie was being pretentious. He wanted to rebel against the musical convention, and he succeeded with this composition because he created a “buzz” – to use a modern term. He got people to notice.
Now, here’s MY take on piano piece.
When you listen to it, the melody is played by the upper hand or the top note. The melody rises and lowers, which reminds me of the foams made by waves when they flow in and out of the shore. Meanwhile, the bass note plays a swaying rhythm. Listen to the beat. One…two-three. One…two-three. It has the steady ¾ time of a waltz.
Put the two together: the light floating melody and the slow rocking pattern and what do you get? You get a music that would put you to sleep… just like it lulled EunSob to sleep in this episode.
This sort of music inspired what we now call background music (or elevator music, lol). The French actually have a term for Sartie’s music, “musique d’ameublement” or furniture music. I guess, it’s because the music recedes in the background like ordinary furniture. lol. Anyway, the point here is the melody is simple enough and repetitive enough that it can be played unobtrusively in the background. It doesn’t demand the listener’s rapt attention.
Personally, I find this piece boring and overrated. Give me the sublime Bach, flamboyant Mozart, romantic Tchaikovsky or emotional Rachmaninoff anytime.
But Satie? It’s snooze time.
That’s why this musical piece was chosen for this episode. It’s perfect for an insomniac.
3. “Wind in the Willows”
Ah, here’s the conceit!
Since we’ve talking about poems here, we might as well get acquainted with a literary term. A “conceit” is a comparison. It works like a metaphor, except that it’s protracted, long drawn-out metaphor. In this episode, we’re led to believe a) that the children’s book “Wind in the Willow” is significant to the story and b) that the characters and conflict of the kdrama are somehow comparable to the characters and conflict in the “Wind in the Willows.” That’s the conceit of the kdrama.
Frankly, I don’t know why.
For one, as I mentioned in my previous post on Episode 1, EunSub already explained the significance of the wind in the willows for him. In the epilogue, he jotted down his explanation in his “Good Night Bookstore Private Blog Posting.” He said, “There’s only one reason why I like winter. The leaves that were covering my window have fallen, so I can now see your window across the street. And because of Christmas and New Year’s Day, you come back to this town and spend a few days here.”
That’s the significance, simply put: he could see her window now that the wind had blown away the willow leaves. That’s the meaning of wind in the willow for him.
For another, when you read the book, the willow tree in the story itself is really insignificant.
Look. It was only mentioned twice in the book, both times in Episode 7.
First, Rat and Mole tied their boat to a willow tree while they looked for the missing young otter. And then, they got on the boat again and went off to another island that was encircled with “willow, silver birch and alder.”
That’s it!
As for the wind, it was mentioned a number of times in the story. In Chapter 1, when Mole learned to swim, he heard the wind blowing through the reeds.
He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them.
In Chapter 2, a car zoomed past Rat, Mole and Toad bringing a blast of wind. In Chapter 3, while the animals slept, the wind and rain came. Then later, the wind and snow. In Chapter 5, the bitter wind blew again so Rat and Mole sought shelter and ended up at Mole’s house. In Chapter 9, it was mentioned in passing when describing the beautiful sky. In Chapter 10, Toad was thrown in the air so violently that he heard the wind whistling in his ear.
The only moment when the wind played a significant part was in Chapter 7, when the wind blew through the REEDS, and Rat imagined hearing the music of the god.
Here it is:
I feel strangely tired, Rat,’ said the Mole, leaning wearily over his oars as the boat drifted. ‘It’s being up all night, you’ll say, perhaps; but that’s nothing. We do as much half the nights of the week, at this time of the year. No; I feel as if I had been through something very exciting and rather terrible, and it was just over; and yet nothing particular has happened.’
‘Or something very surprising and splendid and beautiful,’ murmured the Rat, leaning back and closing his eyes. ‘I feel just as you do, Mole; simply dead tired, though not body tired. It’s lucky we’ve got the stream with us, to take us home. Isn’t it jolly to feel the sun again, soaking into one’s bones! And hark to the wind playing in the reeds!’
‘It’s like music—far away music,’ said the Mole nodding drowsily.
‘So I was thinking,’ murmured the Rat, dreamful and languid. ‘Dance-music—the lilting sort that runs on without a stop—but with words in it, too—it passes into words and out of them again—I catch them at intervals—then it is dance-music once more, and then nothing but the reeds’ soft thin whispering.’
‘You hear better than I,’ said the Mole sadly. ‘I cannot catch the words.’
‘Let me try and give you them,’ said the Rat softly, his eyes still closed. ‘Now it is turning into words again—faint but clear—Lest the awe should dwell—And turn your frolic to fret—You shall look on my power at the helping hour—But then you shall forget! Now the reeds take it up—forget, forget, they sigh, and it dies away in a rustle and a whisper. Then the voice returns—
‘Lest limbs be reddened and rent—I spring the trap that is set—As I loose the snare you may glimpse me there—For surely you shall forget! Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows each minute fainter.
‘Helper and healer, I cheer—Small waifs in the woodland wet—Strays I find in it, wounds I bind in it—Bidding them all forget! Nearer, Mole, nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into reed-talk.’
‘But what do the words mean?’ asked the wondering Mole.
‘That I do not know,’ said the Rat simply. ‘I passed them on to you as they reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full and clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing, simple—passionate—perfect——’
‘Well, let’s have it, then,’ said the Mole, after he had waited patiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.
But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With a smile of much happiness on his face, and something of a listening look still lingering there, the weary Rat was fast asleep.
🙂 If you want me to explain what you just read, tell me.
To me, the animal characters of the book, namely, Rat, Mole, Badger and Toad, do not at all match the personalities of EunSub and Haewon. I guess, we can FORCE a one-to-one correspondence and say that Rat (because he’s the lead) is EunSub, and Mole (because he’s Rat’s partner) is Haewon. But this kind of comparison is so contrived that it’s laughable.
Soooooo… If you ask me then what’s the significance of the book to the story, I’d say it works like Satie’s Gymnopedie. It’s a boring book that’s meant to lull you to sleep. It’s bedtime reading.
And I’m serious about that. My brothers and I hated this book when we were little, and now that I re-read it, it’s all coming back to me why.
It’s a pretentious and long-winded book. I highly doubt that it was intended for children’s READING PLEASURE. Sure, the writer supposedly wrote it for his only son, but I suspect he was one of those annoying grown-ups who droned on and on without really paying much attention to his child’s flagging interest.
Seriously. What sort of children would be interested in the opening paragraph’s description of SPRING CLEANING??
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.
And the words!! Could a five year old understand what “whitewash,” “spirit of divine discontent and longing,” “penetrating,” “imperiously,” “gravelled” and “‘scrooged” mean?
And go ahead read the fifth paragraph, and tell me if it’s a gripping tale for a child.
He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.
See that? A river is described as “sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal.” That’s a metaphor that will definitely go over the head of any elementary school child, not to mention exhaust her/his vocabulary. Sleek? Sinuous? Full-bodied?
Where’s the dictionary please?
If this was truly a children’s book then all those unnecessary words paying homage to the river should be edited out. Basically, that paragraph only meant to say that Mole was excited to see the river.
This is the exactly the sort of book that turns off young children from great literature.
4. The episode title, “Is It Past Perfect?”
To me, the title carried two meanings.
Obviously, it’s asking whether the past had been faultless, ideal, happy, idyllic, and so on. The answer, equally obvious, is no. We saw the cracks in her past life in that town.
The more obscure meaning of the title is the verb tense, “past perfect.” In grammar, a “past perfect” is a verb that’s used to indicate an action that happened and FINISHED in the past, before another event occurred.
For instance,
The aunt had established her career before she lost her eyesight.
Haewon’s mother had killed her father when she transferred high school.
EunSub had displayed an awkward silence until he offered her coffee.
Past perfect means that a) the action happened in the past, and b) it’s “perfect” because it was thoroughly, absolutely COMPLETED in the past.
And to me, this is the title’s more important question. The episode asks whether everything truly, thoroughly, absolutely ended in the past or there are still remnants of the past lingering in the present.
Take for instance, the beginning of the episode:
HW: I’m sorry. I really have something to ask.
ES: No.
HW: Huh? What do you mean “no”?
ES: (stuttering) T—that thing earlier. It’s all in the past.
Is that so? Is that in his “past PERFECT”?
HW: Oh…You mean many when you said you liked me?
ES: Yes! That’s a finished emotion. (slams door)
See that? Something in his behavior says that his emotions for her aren’t truly in the “past PERFECT” state yet. His attachment to her continues still in the present.
**************
So there you have my commentary of Episode 2. This kdrama started off slow but let’s see how it perks up in the next episodes…when the weather becomes nicer.
I’ve missed you @pm3 🙂 No, I’m not watching this drama (or any other drama. Too caught up in real life). But I still refresh this blog regularly to see if you’ve posted anything new and I read what you write without having any context. I’m creepy like that 💀
P. S. Apologies for mentioning another thread discussion but I need a giant quantity of something alcoholic and the party of BoD on Shallow Island today (read extremely crappy day).
Missed you, too, arihsi.
How’s the baby? How’s motherhood?
The party on Shallow Island should be organized by Phoenix and agdr03. They excel at that. 🙂
Yes, I would say that trying to fit the characters from Wind in the Willows to those in this drama is futile. There are themes that match – going from a lonely life to finding worthwhile friends with whom to share experiences; finding diverse friends who nonetheless protect you and are tolerant of you and your foibles with few if any questions; the change of seasons and the natural world, of course.
As well, it’s a book that is best read aloud, I believe, because it creates pictures. I think that my daughter liked the video of it, although she was small, because there were very good actors behind the voices and she could then understand the gist of the story, even though much of the dialogue was directly from the book.
I enjoyed the poetry exchange. It’s interesting that HW tells ES that she doesn’t some things about him from school but not much. However, she was able to recite her aunt’s poem by heart and back in school surprising the whole group and she could perform the Satie piece without reference to music. In flashbacks she seems to be clocking him regularly in the classroom, so it doesn’t seem that he was under her radar at all.
I am taking a break from dramaland, but I still stop by here to read your analyses and the readers’ comments. Totally agree with you on Gymnopedie No.1. It is kind of boring, but it is very easy to play, and it does have somewhat soothing quality. It is very unfortunate that classical music is often marketed as music for relaxation.
Yay for Rachmaninov!
‘It’s interesting that HW tells ES that she *remembers* some things about him from school…’ Sorry, poor editing in my prior post.
Do you know Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor?
https://youtu.be/wXQCPAR0EHo
I used to be very frustrated with myself that I could never play this. I just didn’t have the finger span and wrist power to do it justice. So I’m glad that my son learned to play it for me. It’s one of the few recital pieces that I kept on video from my sons’ piano-playing years. 🙂
And yes, this piece definitely isn’t “music for relaxation.” It’s music to ravage your soul. The “agitato” part sounds really demented (starting at 1:45): there’s no harmony, no melody, yet it works! And those last notes…They sounded like a death knell, like your soul is departing. It’s how I imagined death to be.
Just beautiful.
ES to me is like a book. This is my favourite quote about books.
“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
He is non-confrontational. Talks in mostly 3rd party. In prose, in stories. It’s indirect and cryptic. Which makes it hard for the person to “get” it. Advantages to his method of indirect counsel/encouragement – it allows the recipient to ease into it (they are less defensive) and mull…to internalize it at their own pace. The disadvantage is that it is painfully slow, and it requires a ton of patience as the giver waits for the penny to drop. It is also to a certain extent very non-committal on his part. It’s safe because he’s talking in 3rd party and he maintains that distance between him and her. She’s going to find it frustratingly hard to get him to commit to owning up to his fantasies of her directly.
As for Wind in the Willows I think it was never meant to be a children’s book. It just ended up as such because it had animals which talked and seemed quaint and had pictures. I much preferred Winnie the Pooh. So I agree maybe the overarching themes of camaraderie and nostalgia is what links the book to the drama.
As for his past perfect? His Walter Mitty like existence (with regards to his secret life with Irene) whilst adorable isn’t realistic? It’s perfect in that inner world of his…everything is “fine”, it’s perfect. Past perfect because he doesn’t want her to rock it (tenuous link to Boat life with Mole and Rat 😂). Because to rock it would potentially mean the perfect world he created in his mind would be less so. It would be out of his control. He would much rather dwell in a world where a life with her is a possibility than a potential life without her (should she refuse him in real life). He is too scared to lose that which is why he persists in skirting round the issue.
@nrllee, ‘ES to me is like a book’. What a great idea.
I wonder what his relationship to HW’s aunt is. Why did she want him to call her by her name? He seems reluctant to discuss it, so I really, really hope it’s not sexual. When his mother tells him not to go up into the mountains anymore, she also says and don’t go up to that house. Which house?
Wow! Thank you. I’ll be honest, I read all of these information but it just went over my head. LOL. The book is really boring.
I’ll watch episode 2 tonight and see how I go. Maybe if I can’t relate it to all of this then I might just give it a miss and move on to another cdrama?!. LOL. Let’s see. 🙂
I’m re-working Dr Cutie Ep 22. It’s never-ending. lol.
Exciting! 😊
At least you can take your time with it. 🙂
PM3,
I know the C sharp minor Prelude by Rachmaninov! It is one of my favorites too. He was 19 years old when he wrote it. Thank you for the link. I have actually heard the artist in concert many years ago. Playing Rachmaninov sometimes makes me imagine how the surfer feels when riding the wave. Here is another favorite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RICGqS2UtmU
Now back to When the Weather is Nice.
I could never get into The Wind in the Willows as a child. The poetic language seems more appealing to an adult. I am wondering if I should give it a try now…
“ Wow! Thank you. I’ll be honest, I read all of these information but it just went over my head. LOL. The book is really boring.”
@agdr03 I know. Which is why I said you really have to be in a certain sort of mood to continue. Like @packmule3 said, it’s like a melancholic poem…slow, plodding, contemplative. The scenes where little or nothing is said (pregnant pauses) in this drama are many. Beautiful in setting and gorgeous aesthetically but it does make the drama tonally very somber.
I couldn’t agree more @nrllee 🙂 The setting is beautiful and the landscape gorgeous but it is very quiet too. I think it doesn’t help too that I’m not great in literature and poems. 🙁
After Dr Cutie and having lots of fun there to here, I’m not sure how I’ll cope. I will watch episode 2 tonight and make up my mind then. 🙂
Thanks 🙂
Spoiler alert:
We finally have a spark to ignite things: The mother arrived looking very swag at the very end of ep 4.
Whose mother? 🙂
HW’s mother. Jumps off the bus and insults the very first person who recognises her.
Apologies if you posted this already:I read that this drama will take a week off as lead was at the Milan fashion week . Flu precautions.
Milan?! Oh no.
Thanks for the update, Fern. I think “Hi Bye Mama” will also take a break for precautions.
I’m coming up with my list of dramas to watch while on self-quarantine. Smartie gave me the idea earlier. 🙂
A stockpile of dramas in addition to food and meds? I am looking forward to it. I might look at some that you covered before my time as well. Should keep me busy. So much doom & gloom here.
Ref HW’s mother; I was trying to figure out a time line using wiki for school ages. I think HW, ES and classmates must have been at most 18-19. Mother had a 7 year sentence. They are now about 27. Does it mean she’s been out for at least a year? It will be interesting to see how she relates to the aunt and HW.
I don’t like that she sometimes left HW alone at home without explanation when HW was young. Even now I leave notes or texts if I leave the house while my girls are still asleep. I wonder where she worked and if HW got her musical talent from her or from her father.
I surprise myself that I like this show. I’m usually impatient for a good, moving plot and I was one of those who dissed Warm and Cozy and The Time We Were Not in Love as shows that took the longest time to travel the short distance between the OTPs. But this show, I like.
I find it relaxing just waiting for little things to unfold instead of needing the characters to make things happen. In Ep 3 and 4, enough is hinted at to be intriguing enough to keep me coming back.
Hae Won’s mother was a surprise, especially since I thought it was her aunt. Aunt and mum are twins? And that great coat she wore looked so familiar. Didn’t aunt wear the exact same overcoat? Anyway I’m getting ahead of us. I’ll wait for Ep 4 to be posted here. 🙂
@GB, a week’s break will give us time to catch up or re-watch as the case may be. Yes – I thought it was HW’s aunt at first, too, until she started speaking. Sunglasses, long coat, so similar. Oooooo.
It seems that there are a lot of secrets or unknowns to unfold, as you say.
I have a question about Ep4 (?). When you get there please let me know your thoughts. It’s about a strange scene juxtaposed into the story. The P.D. obviously thought it was necessary but it’s bugged me since because I can’t understand the significance? It’s the church scene straight after he (ES) talks about why she (HW) should never wander into the mountains alone. ES goes back to his room and then looks out his window? Contemplating? And then camera cuts to a quaint Catholic Church and then onto the statues of Joseph, Mary and Jesus (as a boy not baby). Why though? He didn’t look to be a religious sort?
And yes the wind blows in HW’s mother, interrupting Hw’s reverie. She is recognized instantly by a man on a bike. Same sunglasses as the aunt. Same brusque, jaded, cynical personality. Leaving us with the question, how will the Villagers respond to her return? With the same vehemence as HW’s classmates?
@packmule3 I hope things are well with you. I thought about you when the news about COVID19 was ramping up in your country. Mine is on the brink. The enemy is amongst us. Personally I think it has been moving here for a while now and we just never bothered to check. There’s panic everywhere. We need those placards saying Keep Calm and Watch KDrama. And Keep Calm and STOP hoarding toilet paper.
@nrllee, I wondered the same thing in ep. 4 and can only think that it’s one of those things that will unfold, as there has been no reference to religion to this point. I hope it’s not about saintly sacrifice, but perhaps about family.
Stay safe and well. One contributor said that she’s got a k-drama in mind for when she gets locked inside, so I think your motto is apt.
Do you have the time of the scene. I can check tonight. 🙂
@packmule3 9min 11sec (around that). You can hear the bells tolling in the background with soft melancholic guitar music…and then the strange scene with the church and falling snow. I took a screen shot. Again it was beautifully crafted and filmed but just odd?
https://i.ibb.co/LZhKdQT/7-A8-EE765-982-E-4-ACE-B7-DF-B375763-F9218.jpg
Thanks, nrllee.
I’ll get started on this kdrama now. 🙂
@Fern Yes maybe family. Or the loneliness of Christ as a sacrificial lamb? Christ was very much a lonely figure in his earthly life. Nobody understood him. Everyone relied on him to pull them out of trouble. A man of sorrows, familiar with suffering. Mirroring ES? In the mountain rescue later on, his mother (and HW) remarked how everyone just depended on ES in times of crisis and nobody seemed to care that he headed up the mountain on his own to spearhead his own rescue Mission? They were willing to sacrifice him? Nobody else went up. They left it to the rescue unit. JW (for all his concern for the safety of his colleague) stayed rooted at the bottom of the mountain and delegated the responsibility to ES.
@pkml3, @nrllee The Episode 4 scene: conversation just before the cut to the Church is at 7.50 minutes. Long thought-filled pauses, then cut to the Church is at 9.15 minutes.
It seemed to start snowing in front of ES’s window which might have merged with his memory. There is the sound of a church bell and the Church is visible in light snow. Statue at front of the yard looks a little similar to the “Christ the Redeemer” statue in Brazil. Then a cut to the Holy Family statues which are very briefly in focus.
His cheeky sister later finds in his wallet a photo of him as a boy with a man beside him who does not look like his father. She seems struck by it. Then there’s the house in the mountain that he goes regularly to just to sit in for a while. I’m wondering if all of these are connected.
Sorry, meant to tag @Fern
Yes the mother’s appearance was most interesting. The lollipop connection seems to suggest that mother and daughter might be more similar to each other than would seem. At least HW seems to have ‘left’ her mother, hardly speaks about her and may not want to be likened to her.
“ His cheeky sister later finds in his wallet a photo of him as a boy with a man beside him who does not look like his father. She seems struck by it. Then there’s the house in the mountain that he goes regularly to just to sit in for a while. I’m wondering if all of these are connected”
@GB I have a suspicion that ES is adopted. And the man in the photo is his biological father. His sister probably doesn’t know or knows but just never saw pics of his dad. His sister refers to ES as a wild animal. And the Village folk seem to think nothing of him wandering into the mountains on his own. I think the house in the mountains is his original home. Where he was raised by a distant father (I hope not abusive) and he was left to just fend for himself much of the time. Like a wolf boy. Which is why he knows the mountains like the back of his hand. That’s why everyone is so nonchalant about him just wandering off on his own. Only his mother cared about his welfare. She was the one to open her home and heart to him. You could see how he lapped it up when she fussed over him, voicing her worries and telling him to never do that ever again.
I think the fact the mother let HW alone when she was young has a connection with the reason she killed the father.
The Aunt, the Mother, HW and ES are all mysteries for now.
ES’s legend sounds like his own story. Why with a such family is he so lonely?
Wow. More and more interesting. @Sayaris, I was wondering the same thing about ES’s family who dote on him. How can he be so stand-offish if he has such a warm and huggy family? He seems to enjoy the fuss, rather than shrugging them off as some might. The only person outside his family who messes with him is his old friend Lee Jang-Woo and ES doesn’t seem to mind that either, or maybe he’s just resigned to that brotherly sort of affection. I wonder how much LJW knows about ES’s hidden affection for HW?
@nrllee, I could only vaguely see a small cube shaped structure in the woods when HW was lost. Is it a house? I thought it might be a hut for hunters or a storage hut of some sort. I think I missed the scene where he just goes to sit as @GB wrote. Your explanation makes sense. I will look again on a different format. Also, I may simply have the houses mixed up and might think he’s at one when he’s at another. Help. 😅
@pm3 sorry .. I couldn’t reply earlier. Baby is well, thank goodness. Motherhood is driving me nuts as expected. Additionally, Wife-hood (a word of my invention) is also driving me mad.
@nrllee I agree about toilet paper. I smell the stink of corporate and pharma greed everywhere. They are the best beneficiaries of war and disease, whether they actually exist or are merely in the psyche of the people as a result of media and targeted strategies.